Under Currents - Nora Roberts - Book Review

 

TITLE - Under Currents

AUTHOR - Nora Roberts

BUY LINK - Click Here

SYNOPSIS -
From the outside, the house in Lakeview Terrace looks perfect and the Bigelows seem like the perfect family: the respected surgeon father, the glamorous, devoted mother and two beautiful children.

But the perfect facade hides dark undercurrents. Teenager Zane and his younger sister, Britt, are terrorised by their violent father until one dark, brutal night when their father's temper takes a horrifying turn for the worse.

Over time, Zane moves on and builds a new life for himself but a childhood like that can cast a shadow the length of a lifetime. Can Zane ever really be free of his past? Or could those dark undercurrents rise back to the surface, forcing Zane to fight for his life once again...

Do you like romance novels, family dramas or crime novels? Well this book has it all wrapped up in one. This is one of Nora Roberts standalone novels, and the first of her books I've ever read. 

Darby, having escaped an abusive Husband, looks for a place to live, somewhere in another part of the country. Preferably a place with a view of trees and lakes. She eventually found the ideal place, a place she had never heard of before, but having checked it out on the internet it suited exactly what she was looking for. So, having sold her house and her business, she packed up all her wordly goods in her car and headed off.

What comes next for Darby is lots of hard work, new friends, a romantic interest and murder. The author has weaved all of this into one extremely well written novel, which was very hard to put down. Her style of writing is very descriptive. I could almost smell the flowers she wrote about, and picture the boats on the lake. I could see all the delightful houses she described and imagine myself being there. I could also picture the characters as if I knew them personally. I really loved how different families lives were weaved together. The murder and intrigue in the book, blended very well with the family drama's and happy times.

This has to be one of the best books that I've read this year. I didn't want it to end, and would love to have seen a follow up to it as I'll miss the characters.

I thoroughly recommend this read, and I will certainly be checking out more of Nora Roberts standalone novels. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the discipline of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland.

She worked briefly as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along. A blizzard in February 1979 forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three and six year old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate.

Born into a family of readers, Nora had never known a time that she wasn’t reading or making up stories. During the now-famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of those stories. It was there that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981.

Nora met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, when she hired him to build bookshelves. They were married in July 1985. Since that time, they’ve expanded their home, traveled the world and opened a bookstore together.

Through the years, Nora has always been surrounded by men. Not only was she the youngest in her family, but she was also the only girl. She has raised two sons. Having spent her life surrounded by men, Ms. Roberts has a fairly good view of the workings of the male mind, which is a constant delight to her readers. It was, she’s been quoted as saying, a choice between figuring men out or running away screaming.

Nora is a member of several writers groups and has won countless awards from her colleagues and the publishing industry. Recently The New Yorker called her “America’s favorite novelist.”